Heero's Eyes
by Selena Barton
Summary: Duo's PoV. Heero Yuy x Duo Maxwell. A getting together fic.


Title: Heero's Eyes  
Series: Gundam Wing  
POV: Duo Maxwell  
Pairings: working toward 1x2 (as usual for me ^_^) 

Heero's Eyes

I don't know how Heero does it. Lives with just the one mask for pretty much every situation. Okay, so I have the jester's mask, but it has layers. I have many masks. I have that mission mask that says I'm going in there and coming back out with everything done. I have my jester mask that everyone is mostly used to because while everyone is laughing they don't have time to feel less than at least amused. I use it to throw people off balance. Then there is the charming prince mask. The one that lets me flirt and charm and get what I need from whoever I have to coax it from.

I'm not going to even consider all the masks for the missions. The ones that go with the personas that I use to get into places and go undetected. Like the street walker that uses the flirt mask along with the mission mask to achieve time with an unsuspecting victim. Or lets me be that contact that is needed to pass info between agents.

Yet Heero seems to just have the one mask. The one that even at a social function says not to approach him or to think of him as anything less than the soldier that he is. The mask that doesn't seem to have a hole in it anywhere. That is until you figure out where to look. And how. If you don't look hard enough, or know what you are looking for, that one little hole is useless.

His eyes. That's the only flaw in his mask, and only at the most desperately deep level. You have to look far past the determination and aggression, trying to find the depths of his soul before you can see the him behind that mask.

I can't remember the first time I saw into that little hole and realized just what it was. Couldn't even convince myself I'd seen anything but the mask for real. It had been a long mission that round, one that had us somewhere out past L4. Can't even remember the name of that star any more. I just remember the screen in Deathscythe flickering to visual and seeing his face. That calculated expression set firmly in place, but his eyes, they just didn't seem to hold the same flat look. There seemed to be a bit of satisfaction and warmth there. I shook my head trying to figure out what was wrong with my eyes and brain. Had to be too tired for my own good. But that visual was not going anywhere.

"You okay?" he asked as he watched me shake my head for the fourth time in as many minutes.

"Yeah. Just can't believe we didn't cut it any closer," I told him. A part of me knew that we were always sent on the ones that seemed to be the suicide missions, not like we had anyone to really go home to after all.

I spent the entire time going back to the rendezvous point trying to figure out if I'd really seen anything beside the completely controlled mask that was there. By the time we landed and reached the ground, those little hints inside his eyes were gone, and the mask was fully back in place.

I was a long time before I had the chance to really look again. I mean with five guys running around, it wasn't exactly safe to go around gazing into his eyes all the time. Especially into one Heero Yuy's eyes. That just seemed like a guaranteed suicide mission, and I wasn't really up for that. Not that looking into those blue eyes was overly painful for me. Happened to think if they had any emotion, it could have been a rather comforting past time. Something enjoyably done by candle light, even.

That second serious glimpse I got was different. We were in person. It was a safe house on Earth. The natural barriers were also hindrances. I mean their not being able to easy scale the sheer cliff was nice, except it also meant we weren't going to escape down that way either. I don't like being a moving target down a mountain side. But the way we were closed in, it was nice to know we didn't have to seriously consider too many people  
sneaking in.

We'd been in the safe house with Trowa and Quatre for about a week before they went out on another mission. That left me alone with Heero. I had traded in my jester's full force mask for a much tamer version, closer to being just myself. We were tired, having come off of our missions and then them around. So, it wasn't like we'd fully let ourselves relax too much. It wasn't like we were going to really relax completely possibly for  
the rest of our lives, but closer when no one else was around.

I had been sitting on the couch for the past hour, a copy of Oliver Twist in hand. I had been reading for some time, and it was just hitting a lull when I glanced up to see what Heero was doing. He was leaning there, and I think I caught him looking at me. His eyes were there, and before he turned his head away, I even saw a faint blush.

Something seemed different. I let my eyes fall back to my book for a bit, but I didn't read any more. It's not like I hadn't read it all before. But it was one I enjoyed.

"Something on your mind?" Heero finally asked.

"Hmm?" my great wit supplying the wonderful line...right...

"You've been on that page for over an hour. You were going through pages in minutes before."

"Was just wondering how Tro' and Quat' were doing this round." Okay I wasn't. I was really thinking about deep blue eyes like the dark blue of a clear night sky lit by a full moon. And what emotions and thoughts I perceived to see running through them.

"They aren't due to report for another 36 hours. But I would presume that everything is fine since they are probably still in flight."

I nodded then and looked over at Heero again. Now let me admit here that I didn't have any clue about what Heero was drawn toward at that point in time. I wasn't even sure he had a sexual side. Unless it was asexual. And that still left me out of the question. So, I just looked at his eyes meeting mine.

I still didn't know exactly what I was seeing. If it had been anyone else, I think I would have, but this wasn't just anyone. So the fact that I thought I saw a fondness there was something I wasn't computing. Or not allowing myself to compute anyway. It puzzled me to say the least. But it was there. And I spent the next few nights processing the thought, and finally convinced myself I was merely seeing what I wanted to see, and nothing that was truly there.

That year where we kind of sat around and helped do the Preventer's set up thing was kind of bitter-sweet. I mean Heero and I were partnered as agents, and that was great. I had worked with him so much during the war that we seemed to know what move the other was going to make even before it was a solid thought in the other. Everything was fine until that kid got misled into trying to take over the world.

Don't get me wrong. She was a bright kid, and the soldiers backing her were down right coordinated. But she made the mistake of starting her coo with Relena Peacecraft's abduction. And that, Heero just couldn't ignore. Now, I'd figured out he didn't love her. Not like some had thought at times during the war. We'd had plenty of time to talk, and he loved her ideal and her dedication to said ideals. He even admired her ability to step up and take over her father's work when he was killed. I'd thought she'd have trouble with it, admittedly, but she did quite well. Not like the war gave her time to get her feet under her before forcing her onward.

But I digress.

That day we took off to go after her meant more. It didn't seem like it, at first. Hell I wasn't even sure when I got some flat comment that was a complement to my piloting skills. That flash of a smirk when I had said Quatre would blame himself for no air in space, which I was right about thank you. The man has tried to put docks in places between the colonies in case things go wrong on shuttle flights. So he is trying to put more air in space.

Anyway, I didn't realize it really happening until after we got him out of that bunker. Trowa had to carry him out while Quatre and I helped Relena. Poor girl was beyond shock and into hysterical crying by that point. She thought he was dead, and can't say I wasn't starting to wonder about it myself. But Trowa never missed a beat carrying him out.

I remember sitting there by his bed after that. Just sitting there, holding his hand. I wondered if I'd live through it when he came to, but that bit of concern for myself was drowned out by my concern for him. Not only had he just put himself and his gundam to beyond their limits, but we were now free of war again. He certainly couldn't go back to Preventers right away. His body was too run down. So I just hoped it was too weak to kill me as well. Though I had to wonder if that was even possible.

It was two days before his eyes started to flicker open. Those first few tries quickly blinked back shut. They finally opened without that damned mask in place at all. Too tired to fool with it I guessed.

"Duo?" his voice was harsh, throat was dry, I knew that. And I fished a piece of ice from my drink and gave it to him. Took him a second to catch on as it melted against his lips before he actually took it in his mouth.

And I started with the answers of the where, when, how. "Hospital, 2 days, Trowa carried you out. Relena's fine."

He looked at me for a moment after that. And I was afraid of the one set of questions I'd left unanswered.

"Wing?"

"Parts were gathered up, but she's destroyed. She held together for you pretty well through, that kept ya alive."

He nodded at first and then felt his hand squeeze mine. I started to draw it away from him, but he gripped tighter and pulled our hands up into his view. "Why?"

Damn him. I cannot lie to him. I wanted to. Oh how I wanted to, but I had to go down a careful path of truths instead. "Seemed like the right thing to do?"

"Explain," he said looking me straight in the eyes. Those eyes were so mixed with emotions I wasn't used to seeing in him that I couldn't begin to pick one out of them all.

"A way to know you weren't dead despite that monitor's beeping. A way to remember where I was as I woke up every time that door opened without having to jump out of my skin." I wasn't about to say a comforting gesture I hoped would be for the both of us.

He kept staring at me as long as his eyes could stay open, but it wasn't long. I think exhaustion won over his curiosity about our hands. And his grip never loosened until he was completely out again, and it didn't completely relax then.

I got to see his eyes staring into mine a lot that round. Each time he'd wake up a little clearer, and slowly that mask would fall back into place. And after he got out of the hospital, he had to stay with someone. So who better to hide him than the one that was driving him home? I didn't like the idea of not telling everyone exactly where he was. Poor Quatre was worried sick for awhile. But he accepted it once he understood; he'd forgiven us. Gotta love Quat' for that.

You'd think living with him would have been the first step to figuring out just what it was that made the man tick, but you'd be wrong. Turns out that holding his hand in that hospital was. But I didn't find that out for years.

In fact, he'd been living with me all through his recovery, and it wasn't until he was well enough to move out that I figured out what I was doing to myself. I had stayed by his side pretty much. My partner from work was now my house mate...in a way, and I was taking point to protect him from anything that could hurt him. I wasn't dealing with my own issues that were being beaten down into the recesses of my mind over it now being peace. I  
was protecting my point man until he could take point back. I was chasing off all my partners so that I wasn't being sent on any missions that were more than local police work. I was the resident hacker now that Heero wasn't there. I was coming home, checking the house over just like every safe house we ever entered, and then checking him over.

I was letting my emotions for him find a stronger root than I had ever considered allowing. As if I had a choice. And when it was about time for him to move, I found his eyes weren't any more certain about that 'choice' than I felt.

"Ya know, buddy, you don't have to move. Plenty of room here for both of us. And it's not like we don't work together just fine."

He blinked a few times and then nodded. I guessed that was my acceptance of the offer. Either way, he didn't offer to move off my couch or out of my place after that. He finally went back to work from his secret seclusion, and Wufei was right there welcoming him back. I got this weird look from him as I acted like it was totally normal to have Heero there. And for me, it was. I'd kept telling him that my partner would be back, that he couldn't stay away from the pull of the Preventers' allure. But no one believed me. But they didn't have to listen to his protests about not being able to do just that.

It took a mission, a bad one really, to figure out how he felt. I remember being right in the middle of the firefight with him. Just like so many times in the war. Only this time, I didn't feel right. Something wasn't sitting well with me. I tossed the grenade and we ducked behind the wall. Explosion. Moved down the hall. More shots. Only this time I growled and felt like my shoulder was on fire.

Steadying the rifle hurt like hell, but I had no choice. I tried to not let him realize what had happened until we were back to the safe house, but that isn't how it worked out. He'd looked at me after we spun back behind a wall as the explosion hit.

"Status?"

"Perfect," I gritted out.

He didn't argue. He just went on, not like we had any choice in that matter. When we got out of that base and into the truck, my vision was getting fuzzy. I'd been bleeding for quite some time now from a wound I didn't dare inspect.

"Get pressure on it," I heard as the med kit was pulled out from under the truck seat and shoved into my lap.

My hand was pressing into my shoulder without my realizing I'd told it to. I almost wondered if he had an extra hand doing it for me. Told you, been bleeding too long. Thoughts were making little sense at times.

It was another hour before he felt it was safe to stop running and examine the wound himself. I was close to unconscious and felt his hands moving things, though couldn't really say I felt it either. I knew my jacket came off at some point, and I knew exactly when he went fishing for that bullet. That I felt and almost finished off the consciousness. Yet it kept me from drifting off as well. It's odd like that. The pain makes you want that slip from reality, yet makes you cling to it as well.

I don't even know if I stayed conscious until he was done. I just remember waking up in the safe house, my hand in his and my head was in his lap. There was a hand stroking my hair, and that's when I realized it had been unbraided and redone. It wasn't nearly as tight as I did it. He must have noticed the change in my breathing because his hand stilled and then he spoke.

"Status?"

"Hell," I chuckled. I felt like hell.

He started to move, but I found my hand moving and settling on his leg where I could reach it. He froze, the hand in my hair tensed for a moment, and I rolled to look straight up at him. His eyes were doing that whole emotions everywhere and not a one to grab hold of. I saw the thoughts racing to gather back up that mask.

I sighed and never let my eyes leave him, "No masks now."

He looked down at me startled by the words. I don't think he realized he was even doing it completely. I think we'd both worn the masks for so long, it was pretty much second nature to snap it right back in place when someone was looking.

"Duo?"

"Talk," I said. Voice still not quite back with me yet. That dry throat thing really is annoying. I hate not being able to talk as much as I know seems to set people at ease. Okay, so I wanted to throw on the jester's mask and make things all better. I meant no mask for him, not me. Hypocritical, maybe? Something I needed at that moment, yes.

"You lost a lot of blood. Lost consciousness in the truck about an hour from here." I remember dreaming about having my head on his lap in the truck, but if it had been real, and I'd woken at some point only to black out again, he didn't mention it. "Carried you in to the couch. I was going to sit over there," he paused and waited for me to glance in the direction of the chair across the room before he continued. "You started to toss and turn. Must have been a nightmare the way you were yelling and threw a few punches." I started to wonder if any of the bruises on him were my fault at that point. I mean, we had been through a rough escape, we both had bruises before we left, but were any of his new? I couldn't remember. "This seemed to calm you, and I didn't want you to start the bleeding again."

Now, I'd say I was fully inserting said what I want to see emotions again, but he was blinking. His eyes were shinier than usual, and he was blinking and squeezing them shut when he thought I was closing mine. If I was merely inserting what I wanted to see, I had a strong suspicion that my head would not be in his lap, nor would he have toyed with my braid to the point of having to rebraid it. It had never been taken down and redone  
during the war, by anyone but myself.

"Braid?" I threw out there. I wanted to see if he'd tell me why he'd done it. Or if I'd have to wait another 3 or 4 years to find out. He had that kind of pattern after all. Doing something nice and caring, wait years to admit to it.

"It was falling down," was the answer I got. But the way his fingers were enjoying the looseness of the hair on my head, I was pretty sure he'd been running his fingers through it. I'd wager in the thought that he might not ever get the chance again. I know I was feeling pretty near dead myself.

His fingers were so soothing in my hair that it was almost impossible not to let them ease me back off to sleep, so I did. I woke a few hours later, alone, in a bed. I could feel the sheets beside me to realize there had been someone there recently, but they were cool enough to know they'd left several minutes before I woke.

I remember hearing sounds in the kitchen. At least they were kitchen sounds, and my brain was unfogging enough to put it together that was where the sounds belonged. I drug myself out of bed carefully, realizing I was still in my jeans from the mission. I took the time to dig out a change of clothes before heading down the hall and into said kitchen. I sat myself down at the table in the chair next to the hallway.

"You shouldn't be up," was the greeting I received for all my effort. Hey it's damned hard to walk that short distance when you have lost that much blood and are barely awake.

"Can't lay around forever. And I remember someone else not staying in bed as long as they were supposed to as well." Ha. I have him there. He was not in bed three days after I got him home from that Marimeia bit, and I sure as hell couldn't make him stay there.

He nodded. I guess the point was rather moot anyway. Neither of us tended to do what we were supposed to when injured.

I found a bowl of soup set in front of me before I knew it. And he was sitting down across from me with his own. "Eat."

I did as told. Rare, but true. I was down right hungry, and had he told me not to eat, I think I'd have eaten anyway. So it wasn't as much following his order as it was agreeing that's what I wanted to do. It just wasn't running through my mind as fast as I would have liked.

Now this was far from the first time he'd taken care of my when I'd been injured. Hell, we took care of each other in that damned war, the five of us. It was necessary. Not like Gundam pilots could just walk into the hospital and get treated. It wasn't exactly safe. Hell, base hospitals weren't even usually safe, especially in the end. So we'd gotten pretty good at taking care of each other. And at knowing when the other needed the commands to keep themselves moving along. I'd even gotten away with ordering Heero around while he was first recovering. It was a bitter-sweet thing, while it lasted.

I looked up from that soup to find him staring at me. Those eyes still running a mix of things I couldn't figure out completely, but this time I could reach concern, confusion, and something else I had never seen near the front. It was something that had been way back in the far recesses of those eyes that first night I really saw his eyes. And I still couldn't name it.

"Heero?"

He blinked quickly and went back to staring at his soup. "Just thinking," he answered.

"About what?" I asked and then shoved another spoonful of noodles and broth into my mouth so he'd know I'd not be speaking any further words on the matter if he chose to speak.

He shook his head. "It's nothing," he responded.

"Sure looked like something. Ya sure you don't wanna talk about it? We've been partners a long time, not like I haven't been through a lot of what you have. Might understand."

He shook his head again at that point. "Nothing to talk about," he said, in a sullen tone I'd never heard him use before.

"If ya change your mind, ya know where to find me," I said letting those words lay on the table as we finished our soup. When I started to take my bowl to the sink, he reached out and took it from me. That was something new. "What?"

"I've got it. Go rest."

"Think I'll give a shower a try first. Get the blood washed out of my hair," I said my voice trailing off as his eyes looked at me. I had never seen so many emotions in his eyes in all the years that I'd known him, and that had been about 10 years at that point. We were 25 year old men, that quite frankly, were still learning to deal with emotions we'd locked away and hadn't been allowed to fully feel. We couldn't have done what we had to do if we had.

"Can't get that bandage wet. If you get it started bleeding again," Heero's voice trailed off again, and the concern was being mixed with fear. Fear of what?

"I'll be careful," I said and started to turn before I found his hand around my wrist stopping me. I could have sworn when I turned around, mere inches from him, that the man had been almost close to kissing me, but I knew better. I knew better than to think that Heero Yuy, of all men, would be anywhere near doing that.

"Wait," he said in a husky voice that really didn't do my heart rate any good. He came back with tape and plastic wrap and made my shoulder look like a fruit basket. I'd seen a few of those in hotels and such in those past several years. And I'd usually enjoyed ripping them open and eating pretty much everything found in there. Not at once, but before I left it. What was left at my point of leaving, usually got a place in my bag if I had it with me and it wouldn't be easily crushed in there.

I found his fingers lingering as he did the job, not nearly as efficient as they had once been. And there was a faint trembling to them I thought, but maybe that had been me. I wasn't sure. I started up the hall once more for my bag so I'd be able to wash and condition this mess I was calling a braid. It wasn't staying well at all since he'd done it so loosely, and I had strands out all over the place.

When I started to go into the bathroom, I realized he was sitting in the floor across the hall just inside the doorway of the small room. His head was lowered, and he seemed so lost. I started to wonder if his fear was for me getting that wound started again. Or if it had been something else now. That maybe it was his fear of this moment. Of being seen so close to the edge of losing what control he had over those emotions that they were breaking through.

To say I felt a bit weak was to be an understatement, but nothing I couldn't have managed on my own. But at that moment, I figured it was worth the risk to give him something to focus on while he tried to pull himself back together. Something to distract him from whatever thoughts were consuming him.

"Heero?" I called out, acting like I thought he might be in toward the living room and heading that way. I have a feeling he knew I was doing it, but he took the offered chance to act like he'd come down the hall from the other bedroom by mine.

"What?" he asked, his face seemed a little red and swollen, like maybe he'd started crying at some point. But I didn't think he'd had enough time for his face to respond that much. I had to dismiss that thought.

"Wanna give me a hand? Not sure I can reach my back, let alone how long I can stand up to do it. And this hair? Ya have any idea how long it takes to wash when it's not caked with dried gunk?" I didn't want to remind him it was my blood. That thought seemed to bother him, and I just wasn't about to send the man any deeper into that thought.

He nodded a bit shakily and blushed. That made me a bit amused. I was the one going to be completely naked, dick exposed to the point of risking it betraying me, and he's the one blushing like a school girl with her first view of some guy's prick on the back seat of a school bus. Not to say I didn't feel that heated blush on my face, but I was wearing that jester's mask to keep me from seeming any where near as nervous about it as I was, and hoping to the Heavens that Sister Helen and Father Maxwell had believed in that Heero was too lost in his own war with emotions to notice.

I told you this was the round when I figured out those eyes. And no, he didn't start groping and try to take me in the shower. That wouldn't have been anything like either of us. Even as the charming flirt I am not that easy. Hell, unless I missed my guess, we were both as virginal as the day we were born minus the jerking off I figure we both did. Though I make no promise that he did. It's just a guess. I mean we were teenage boys at one point. The hormones didn't go, 'oh look war, lets not bother him...'

I hadn't seen Heero so nervous in my life. We both could have stood completely naked in front of Oz soldiers and been about to be beaten to death and never flinched, but about to help me in the shower, and we were both nervous wrecks. I found that thought greatly amusing. I even found myself laughing at the both of us as I could see him in the mirror behind me. He was shocked and hurt, I guess thinking I was laughing at him. But I couldn't help the laughter. It was part of how I was dealing with it.

"Look at us! We've seen each other naked a thousand times over, including in the showers, and we are acting like this is any different," I couldn't help but laugh even harder as his head jerked up to meet my eyes in the mirror.

"We...?"

"It's not like I'm down to my birthday suit already," I teased, and realized that any other time, I'd be as naked as the day I came to this world and bent over the edge of the tub testing water for the shower.

In fact, I was keeping my jeans and boxers on until I absolutely had to take them off, and the thought of leaving the boxers on as a thin veil to hide my own package was taking laps around my mind. And I found that thought amusing and frustrating all at the same time. I mean at 25, how do you really excuse a raging hard on when he's the only one with you and touching you? At 15 that raging hard on just popping up happened to everyone at  
some point. Though I doubted his own issue with it at some level, I was certain he'd had that problem too. Odd thought to be having, I admit, but my mind was running those laps with more than boxer coverage in there.

Heero laughed a bit at my comment, but he didn't do more than take his shirt off. Now that's a damned nice sight. That almond skinned chest bare right down to the faded jeans. I'm not talking the almost white version either, I'm talking the dark jeans that have faded from years of wear, though I'm not sure how any of us have anything that hasn't been shot to hell and back in some way. Almost as dark as his eyes at that. Damn it... Had  
to stop that thought before it got any farther.

I actually started to get in the shower with my jeans still on.

"Duo?"

"Huh?" then I looked down and realized what I was starting to do. I started laughing all over again. I got them off my body and stepped into the shower keeping my back to him. I wasn't about to let him see what my damned thoughts had started. Not until I could reign in those thoughts and get rid of the resulting physical evidence.

I reached up to try to get my hair wet. My head was tipped back into the spray, and as I started to slick the water back from my face and over the hair, I groaned and let my arm drop. "Okay, I was right, hair is not something I'm going to be able to handle."

The next thing I knew I heard his voice near my ear and his fingers in my hair, "Let me." That voice was husky and deep. I could have gotten lost in it, had I not already gotten lost in the soft touch to my scalp as he lathered and rinsed my hair. It took some work to get all the blood washed out of the length of my hair, but he made sure it was perfect. I didn't even have to tell him to condition it. He just did it, and rinsed it carefully like he had the shampoo the rounds before. I couldn't have told you when he had  
stripped the rest of the way down and climbed in behind me, couldn't have told you when the water had changed how it was running down my back to not. I didn't even realize he was in the shower with me until after my back and legs had been washed with that same attentive touch.

I remember letting my eyes fall down to where he was finishing washing my legs to see his location. Not so much him as the way his hands came around my legs and the legs behind mine crouched down. I looked back up at the back of the shower quickly, not that it wasn't already too late. Ya know that hormones didn't give us a reprieve during the war comment? They weren't doing me any favors right then either.

My brain was racing in past times, trying to remember when he'd ever been so gentle or attentive. He'd helped me in safe houses before, we'd all helped each other at some point. I don't remember hands ever being that tender before. Calloused hands doing a job set to with necessity and nothing more. That was it. And this was far from that. Far from the necessity, and closer to how you would be with someone far more emotionally  
connected.

I didn't snap out of it until I felt him shoving the soapy cloth into my hand, and his voice was in my ear again, "Duo? You okay?"

"Yeah," I got out and realized as I looked down that everything was soapy but one area, and I was grateful for it. "I got it from here," I said and felt him draw back from me. I missed that warmth, but the water quickly replaced it. He was dried off and gone by the time I got finished up and rinsed completely off. Can't say that I hurried up after that. I took my time toweling off, wrapping my hair in a towel to keep it from soaking  
everything, and then got my boxers and jeans on.

I grabbed my comb and started out the door to head back to my room to find him curled up there in that spot again, knees drawn up, arms folded on them, head on arms. "Can't comb my hair from there. I'm not about to sit on the floor that long," I teased and walked on back to my room. And he already knew my arm wasn't about to reach that far up, so he didn't question the comment, but I'd expected him to.

No, I didn't just expect it, I absolutely was certain it would be a coaxing situation. But I'd been completely wrong. He seemed rather lost as he followed me, and I couldn't see his eyes at that moment. So I couldn't have told you if any of the emotions were coming through more clearly or not. But I knew for sure that his mask of absolute control  
hadn't won over yet. And I was sure that he was trying for it with everything he had down in there somewhere.

I sat down on the bed and wagged the comb at him. That jester mask letting me smile so easily at him that I think it might have made things worse than better, but I'll never be sure. He seemed rather hesitant at first, to say the least. "Come on buddy, it's not like it's the end of the world. Though Lord knows we've lived through that enough times."

He smirked at me. One of the few times I've seen it. And as his partner for so long, it's still a victory won every time. He took the comb from my fingers, almost snatching it from my grasp. Have to admit the sudden confidence took me by surprise, and I just turned to sit with my back to him, "Start at the bottom. It's easier."

I think I could have spent the rest of eternity like that. I really could have. Something about having someone else comb my hair seems so intimate and relaxing. There are times I could almost equate it to being as precious as being with your soul mate in the most passionate, earth shattering sex you've ever imagined being impossible to reach. But it was there. And it seemed like it was just as precious to him as it was to me.

I think it took him about an hour and a half to really get all the tangles free and rebraided, but I didn't really care. He was being so careful and his fingers were dragging through the strands as if they were golden threads. I couldn't have found a reason to break that spell if the place had been about to burn down. It was just that perfect.

I'd have said nothing could have roused me enough to surprise me, but I'd be lying. He started to move away from the bed as I yawned and the braid landed against my back, and I didn't even think as I just laid back into him. Leaned against his warm chest and let my eyes drift shut. I hadn't really meant to do it, not exactly, but I was lulled into one of those places where you are pretty sure it's a damned dream, and not reality.

I didn't realize it hadn't been a damned dream until I woke up a few hours later, his arms wrapped around me, and still sitting right where he'd been when I leaned back. His eyes were looking down at me, and for once that emotion I couldn't get wrapped around was there and more powerful than I'd ever imagined it being. I think there was a fondness there. It was certainly similar to the brightness in Sister Helen's face when one of the new orphans became comfortable enough to doze off in her lap. That soft, compassionate love that always shone out brightly. And I was certain that was what I was seeing in his eyes.

Of course, that's when my shoulder decided to protest the entire freaking world. He couldn't have lost that expression any faster, and I'd almost say I dreamed it when that pained look flashed there and right into that mask of the perfect soldier. But I hurt too bad to really protest the immediate responses being made on my behalf. I was being handed water and pain killers so fast that I almost had them down before I realized I just took something I didn't even question as to it's identity.

"What did I just take?" I ground out around the pain, but he didn't take offense to the question. He'd have asked the same thing, though probably before they were down his throat.

"Just pain killers. Nothing you haven't taken before," he answered, and his hand was there over mine against the raging pain of the shoulder. It's not that the pressure really stopped the throbbing, but at least it felt like I was doing something to dull it. I think we all tried that every time, like we couldn't learn it didn't really work.

"When do we move?" I asked him trying to get my mind on something besides the pain.

"When you are ready," his voice responded, and I suddenly didn't know if he was meaning our current position or from our location. I remember looking at him through my bangs to find that concern in his eyes just behind the mask, and that other emotion I'd finally identified, or hoped I had.

"Wanna clarify that one buddy?"

"Quatre is sending someone to pick us up tomorrow. But right now, we'll move whenever you feel up to it."

Okay, there was a part of me inside that said never move. I admit that, even now. But I just nodded then. I couldn't even begin to put words together right. And despite Quatre not being in Preventers like the rest of us, he still helped us out when we needed him. That's what brothers do after all.

I don't remember when I leaned my head over on his shoulder, or when he let his head lean forward against mine. I just remember waking up that way and the pain being much duller. Then being told to lay back in bed and sleep. It was selfish of me to think that he'd stay close that night. Selfish and foolish. But I still hoped that night I wouldn't have to sleep alone. I knew what seeing Sister Helen's emotions mirrored so brightly when I woke to his eyes was going to do to my brain, and I knew exactly what that meant.

I woke up panting, sweat soaked, and silently screaming into the darkness. I could still feel her lifeless body in my arms, see her empty eyes still on me. Eyes don't close like they do in movies. They stay open, and stare at you. Haunt you for eternity. And those eyes that had been my comfort were also now a private hell that couldn't be shouldered by anyone else.

I didn't think that it would wake anyone. Hell, I'd barely moved other than to bolt upright in bed and then stay still beside my heaving chest which was doing so by force of air trying to reach my lungs. I could still smell that smoke and see the flames as I sat there. Didn't matter if my eyes were open or closed. It was there. The whole thing was right there.

"Duo?" his voice was soft, almost a whisper if it could be that loud. And I couldn't drag myself enough into the reality to even answer. I just sat there. I heard his footsteps across the floor, felt his weight cautiously dip the bed. And then it happened. He pulled me into his arms and held me. I remember hearing a strangled little cry, and I think it might have come out of my throat, but I wouldn't hold me to that. It might have been in my head from somewhere else. And then the tears started.

I couldn't stop them. They just kept coming, and he held me to him, rocking me, and saying nonsense that was slowly soothing and making it all okay. All the crying was okay. It was quite some time before I could hear Solo's words in my head telling me boys don't cry. And I had to cling to that for a bit before I got myself stopped. I hadn't been shaken that badly by those nightmares in years. Not so badly that I cried out of control like  
that.

I'd like to say things progressed from that night steadily into a wonderful relationship that was perfection. But of course not, we weren't made for happy ever after. We weren't meant to have that kind of fairy tale life. No one really gets it. But I'll be damned if we don't all strive for it in some way. But now, I had a hint of what I wanted, and I knew it was somewhere in there. That there was a hope for having a bit of that which I  
dreamed of, and you know Duo Maxwell was not about to let that go, right? You know I had to grab hold of it somehow at some point and drag it back out in the open kicking and screaming if need be, right?

Blame Quatre and Trowa. Seriously. If they hadn't been doing so wonderfully, I think I could have almost ignored it all. I think I could have said it was my damned imagination and pain killers, along with blood loss. I was imagining it all. But Quatre wouldn't let me do that, and Trowa knew too much as well. So I was out numbered...

I tried to get Quat' to understand that I was Heero's partner in Preventers and that if I dared go through with what he thought I should, that it would end that completely. It wasn't that I didn't think Trowa or Wufei wouldn't be capable of covering Heero's back. It was just we had a long history together, and I knew Heero better than they did. Our missions went without verbal communication. Most of the time without anything but that silent knowledge that we knew the other so well we knew what he was about to do. And who would we each end up with? I fully trust them, don't get me wrong. But did I really want to end up locked in a car for 3 days straight with Chang Wufei? Or to be put side by side with the acrobat, when I was used to the agility being my thing? They were both more flexible than Heero, and that would take out my niche a bit. I was the one that could charm, but Trowa, even without knowing it, was quite the charmer himself.

And no it wasn't all who would I be stuck with. It was also, would they be able to hit that instinct that said when Heero was deviating from the plan and taking off in another direction? Would they be able to convince him that something wasn't right with just a look and firm planting of the heels? Would they be able to see those emotions running deep below the mask and figure out when he was passing his own limits and still able to cover it? I'd been at Heero's back so long, I could tell you with the slightest movement of a shoulder when he was at his limit, and it was time to rethink the plan and find a new one. Could they? Would they know it had to be done to keep him from going off and getting himself killed? I mean the man used self-destruct a lot when I wasn't doing it for him.

See why I hate thinking and I hate change? They go a bit too much hand in hand. And it was Quatre's constant encouragement, as he put it, that was starting to make those thoughts a bit too loud.

I think that night's dinner had been the point I was supposed to say something. We were all at Quatre's small house. I use the term small relatively. It was small for a Winner estate, but still 3 times larger than the house Heero and I shared. Our home as far as I was concerned. And it had been a barbecue to get all us 'brothers' together.

Granted, everything we did was rather discrete. We'd learned to hide pretty much every connection to anything and anyone long ago. But the shiny gold band on Quatre's hand didn't take long to be discovered. We all knew Tro' and Quat' had been working around to that for years, so we just tried to act like we didn't notice any change. I know for one, I was trying to see how long before the blond squirmed right out of his seat and screamed it at the top of his lungs. Though I think, looking back, it was meant as a sign of encouragement as well. Kind of a reminder it could happen even for us war battered souls.

It wasn't that Trowa didn't have his own band, but we also all understood that none of us that joined the Preventers were going to be able to wear any sign of a bond to another. Not while we were agents. It was just too risky. At times, I think Quat' was the only smart one of us. Not that he hadn't followed into his own private form of warfare. I can't think of some of his business ventures without seeing them as missions, and some of those  
business men at dinners as the enemy. And I can still see it in Quat's eyes when he hits that war sharpened tactical mind that snaps right to the heart of what they don't want to see.

And I was seeing that tactical precision staring at me across that table right then. Heero and Trowa were out back with the grill. Wufei had followed, and I'd stayed behind with Quat' talking about something totally pointless until then.

"Tell him."

"God, Quat' find a new tune. I've told ya why I can't."

"You told me why you are afraid to, not why you can't."

Damn him, if he wasn't right. And a bit of me hated him for that. Yet a part of me loved him for it too. Though I'd never tell him that.

When I didn't even begin to start to continue the discussion, he continued it for me, "You know either one of them is just as capable of watching both your backs. And you know full well if he goes down, that you will lose the perspective to keep fighting other than to get him out of there. If you were supposed to go into the next room and set up the explosives, you'd tell that part of the mission to go to hell."

He was right. I would pick Heero up across my shoulders if I had to and run as fast as I could carrying him the hell out of there. Drive like a mad man to safety, and hope it wasn't too late. That was my partner. No, that was my Heero.

"You might as well tell him and let it go where it may."

I shook my head, and the sound of the others talking and nearing the door ended that conversation. Quatre just didn't understand how much I was really standing to lose. At least not in my mind anyway. He hadn't effectively lost everyone in his life. So how could he fully grasp just how much they all meant to me, especially Heero. Don't get me wrong. I love Quatre to death; he's a great brother. But, it's just a totally different world we come from.

Trowa. Trowa would understand. I thought so anyway. But turns out he was working another angle I didn't know about at the time. His and Wufei's job had apparently been to get Heero into the same corner Quatre was trying to paint me into. We sat side by side that day across from Trowa and Quatre, with Wufei at the head of the table. Jester's mask in full force.

The drive home was rather quiet, until Heero spoke half way home. "What did Quatre have to say once we were outside?"

"Nothing much, why?"

"Didn't say anything about he and Trowa?"

"Nope. I'm surprised he didn't have an explosion over that ring. What about Tro'?"

"He and Wufei had plenty to say, but nothing about his and Quatre's agreement."

Agreement he called it. I guess since it wasn't an official marriage it was probably an appropriate word. Though I'd call it an engagement personally.

"So what did they have to say out there? What did I miss?"

"A discussion that should never have happened for a good part of it. And then details about an assignment that they wanted another perspective on. They will probably come looking for your opinion if mine doesn't pan out for them."

"And this discussion that shouldn't have happened?"

"Apparently, we are missing something that everyone else is seeing."

"Oh?" Would he say it? I doubted it, but figured it was worth a shot.

"I'd rather not discuss it further."

He cut it out right there. And to me that was the sign that maybe those eyes had been lying to me those months ago in a safe house. I spent the rest of that drive silent, and the evening as well. In fact, it took him close to a week to ask me what was bothering me. And I really didn't know what to say about it. I mean it was exactly what I wanted to hear in a way, but the exact opposite as well.

I told him it wasn't something to discuss at work, and he let me slide. I should have known better than to think that I'd get off the hook completely. Since when had Heero Yuy ever let go of anything when he thought he could get what he wanted?

So that night, dinner on the table, and nearly finished. Though no where near as much as I'd eaten normally, he asked me again. Asked me what was on my mind that had me so quiet and almost not eating.

"What is it we are missing?"

"Hm?"

"Trowa and Wufei. You said they saw something we were missing."

He sat there for a moment, and I watched his eyes. Something ran through them, but those hints were staying deep enough that it was hard to make them out. The mask wasn't about to give way, and I wasn't about to pull on one just to get through the evening. Not at home. This was the one place I wasn't supposed to have to wear a mask, just get to be myself.

I just got up and left the room. He wasn't going to talk and that meant the discussion was over. It was the next day before I could corner Trowa and ask him what was going on. That there was finally something my partner wasn't telling me, and it didn't seem fair for him to be a part of this secret. I wanted to know what was going on. That's when I found out that Wufei and he had been doing the same thing as Quatre had tried on me. That  
they knew enough about us to know we were just trying to avoid the work changes or the loss of a friend we weren't certain was feeling the same.

I was surprised that he was nailing that reality yet still pushing. It didn't seem quite fair. And obviously, Wufei wasn't going to be in my corner. So we were out numbered once again.

I probably would have tried again that night at dinner, but we were so busy packing for the mission that dropped in our laps an hour before the end of work. Now was when we didn't need to talk. Now we were just doing what age old instincts called into action. It was not the time to be thinking about anything our friends had tried to force into light.

And two weeks later, we were staring down the very scenario that Quatre had mentioned. Heero was to be my cover fire and look out, and I was to go in and set up the fireworks display. Not that it didn't seem like a simple in and out for the most part, but none of these people hell bent on destroying peace, ever seemed to allow that to really happen. I guess they don't get the same memos we do.

I was just getting into the room when I heard the shots start. I looked back to see where they were coming from and to assess the situation to see if I needed to just toss them or set them up properly. That's when Heero was hit. I threw those explosives and damn well near blew us all up in the process. I really should have been  
more careful than to really just throw the things across the room in frustration.

I was down and sliding across the floor to Heero in no time. He was trying to keep the cover fire going, but he was bleeding pretty bad. When we had a clear shot for the door, Heero's eyes were cloudy, lids droopy, and skin paling. I threw his arm around my shoulders and started for the door. He wanted to protest, I could feel it, but we didn't have the time for it.

It was far too long a drive back to just make a break for it, but at least we were out of the line of fire by the time Heero got himself bordering on passing out. He had gauze pressed into it trying to stop the bleeding, but it was full of blood. That was not the best thing I could have looked over and seen. Of course blood doesn't bother me, unless it's pouring out of one of us. Then I have a problem with - that it's not where it belongs problem.

We pulled over long enough for me to get his leg bound up better and replace the soaked gauze with clean, dry gauze. He slept the rest of the way back. Not that it was the most reassuring way to get back, but the blood loss was winning out. And that, terrified me. It was not ordinary procedure for Heero to be the one to black out. That seemed to be my job when it came to bleeding.

"'Ro? Come on buddy, need you to wake up," I said, shaking his shoulder. I knew it was absolutely time to be concerned when I got away with touching him without a single reaction.

I couldn't say how long it took them to patch him up, but I can tell you it felt like an eternity. And I can tell you he slept for most of the next day before he came to again. I spent that entire time right beside him, again. This time when he woke up, he didn't seem surprised to find me holding his hand. I was actually the one surprised when he squeezed mine to get my attention. I had driven myself so deep into thought over it all that I'd forgotten to pay attention.

He gave me a weak smile and those eyes drew me in once more.

"God, 'Ro, you had me worried," I said looking at that soft smile.

He squeezed my hand again, and you'd have thought it was me laying in that bed instead of him. He looked around the room and then brought his eyes right back on me. I hadn't realized he was checking for anyone to be in there more than for where he was until he spoke.

"Love you too," he whispered, that soft smile never leaving his lips.

My eyes must have been as big as saucers. I know I stopped breathing when he said it because in a few moments my chest was burning and screaming for air. And my jaw, I think it was on the floor. I must have looked comical; he was chuckling at me. I never thought Heero Yuy would be the one to say it first. But he said it that way, as if my being worried had to mean that. Not that it didn't, because I was and am  
fully aware that it did.

I was also now fully aware that the very emotion I had been fighting so hard to identify, and thought that I had, was truly what I had thought. He'd confirmed that for me in three little words I never dreamed of being fortunate enough to hear from him. It wasn't until I got him home that I officially said it, and kissed him. Held him that first night back as if my not holding him would make it all vanish by the morning. And I've noticed now, that I can find that emotion in the back of his eyes just  
waiting for me to see it when I look into them, even with the mask in place. No matter where we are, I can see it.

And I was right, gazing into those eyes by candlelight is a very enjoyable pastime.


End file.
